


To right a wrong

by Gaia_bing



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Bad dancing alert, Comic Writer Bucky Barnes, Eventual Romance, First Meetings, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Meta (sort of), Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protester Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-01 03:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14512065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaia_bing/pseuds/Gaia_bing
Summary: Steve had tried everything in his power to make them change their minds about the matter,But everyone had refused to listen to him.Well, tonight, he was going to be heard, loud and clear.If it had worked in a cartoon, surely it would work in real life......right?





	1. Warhog Music

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my own way to deal with what happened with Infinity Wars. Since there are so many people that can write canon things about it so much better than me, I'd thought I'd try and do something a little bit meta on the matter, with the help of our favorite boys, of course. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! :)

It was near midnight when Steve Rogers approached the office, his weapon of choice in hand.

  
He knew that he was in dangerous territory and that anybody could call the cops on him at any moment. Hell, he still had the bruises on his behind from the first time that they had threw him out almost a month earlier.

But, right at this moment, he really didn't give much of a damn if he ended up in prison for this.

  
Because _this_ , this was an injustice,

  
This was unfair,

  
This was why people couldn't have nice things, quite frankly.

 

And, even if he was the only person in the entire Universe that cared about this particular matter and he really should be doing something else with his probably boring life, just like they'd told him so pointedly when they'd escorted them out of the perimeters earlier that week, he was going to right this wrong.

 

Steve smiled as he prepared himself.

 

A light was still shining inside one of the small windows.

Good, that meant that there was still somebody in there.

 

The last time he'd tried to do something like this, while it hadn't worked, he had at least been seen.

  
Well this time, on top of being seen...

  
He was going to be _heard_.

 

**************

 

James Buchanan Barnes put his last pencil inside his gathering box and sighed.

  
He looked around the now completely empty office.

  
This had been their passion project, their baby, as they all had loved to call it for the past couple of years.

  
Himself first, since he had been the one that had spear-headed the whole thing.

  
But, the economics were the economics and the sub-division that he and his rag-tag team had been forming, up until officially tonight, had been branded by the same company that had supported them ever since they'd begged and pleaded to be given a chance, as money losers.

  
And if there was one thing that Hydra Corp. and especially Alexander Pierce absolutely _hated_ , were money losers.

  
So this was how, after external and maybe even some internal pressure if he really thought about it, he'd been the one to make the final decision and put the kibosh on the whole thing.

  
And it had been a good thing, what he'd done...

  
Yeah?

  
Giving up on what was probably a pointless dream, on doing something of his own, along with what he'd begun to consider his second family,

  
Being swallowed whole by the higher-ups after having the truth being so harshly spit out at him like that almost a month earlier, going back to his former job as what pretty much amounted to being a cog inside an assembly line, it was the right decision...

  
_Right?_

  
Sighing once again, the man that people liked to nickname Bucky shook his head in resignation.

  
No time to regret the past, he had an new/old office to go back to and unpack the very next morning.

  
He was about to shut off his office light and set off for the night,

  
When...

  
What the hell was _that_?

  
Was that...

  
[Polka music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZS0WIQI7UU)?

  
Bucky blinked several times and once again shook his head, trying to understand what was going on and checking to see if he was having some late-night auditory hallucinations.

  
...no, no he wasn't.

  
He approached his window blinds and carefully lifted them a bit, curious as to why he was suddenly hearing loud music like that so close to midnight...

  
...and he just stood there, completely transfixed by what he was seeing.

  
Was...was that Steve Rogers?

 

What the hell was _he_ doing here so late at night?

  
Was that...was that one of those old boomboxes near him?

 

And was he...

  
Was he _dancing_!?


	2. One month earlier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets quite the shock...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning!! This chapter and pretty much the rest of this story from now on contains spoilers for Infinity Wars. You have been warned. Thank you. :)

Steve was getting ants in his pants.

  
What in the world was taking them so long?

  
He'd been standing there, right in front of the small comic store for over an hour now, awaiting their opening time...  
Because today...today was a big day.

  
Today, one of the things that he'd anticipated the most through all of his life was _finally_ coming out:

  
**_"The Winter Soldier, Issue 157."_ **

  
And why was this issue of a small, independent comic so important to Steve?

  
Well it was finally time for the hero, or should we say, the anti-hero of the whole thing, a googled, masked and metal armed bad-ass, to come face-to-face with the bad guy the whole series had lead up to for the past three years:

  
The demonic and maniacal Thanos, the wielder of the much-feared Infinity Gauntlet.

  
Ever since he could remember, Steve had always adored comic books and he could recount so many times that he'd used his hard-earned allowance money, from different paper routes to helping the neighbor with his lawnmower, to go the nearest shop, just like the one that he was standing in front of right now, and buy the latest thing that was hot in the market.

  
He'd always be thankful for this hobby of his, because it had opened him to new horizons, like history and geography, but most importantly, opening himself enough to finally coming out of the closet, after seeing the first gay superhero doing the same all those years ago.

  
And do not get him wrong, this whole thing had and would always be a simple hobby, since he wasn't a delusional man. He knew that could never make a career out of this, no matter how much his mom had always said that he had a gift for drawing different things and how much time he'd spent in his childhood and even every once in a while, picturing the different adventures of the superhero that he'd created for himself and...

  
Oh dear, there he went again, right into fabulation land and Steve, with a regretful sigh, shook his head to get his mind right back down to Earth. Where rent could be paid and food could be eaten thanks to his waiter job down at the bar downtown and people in masks and capes didn't come to save the day and he had no chance in hell to have some prince on a white horse come sweep him off his feet for a happily ever after.

  
But, if The Winter Soldier came by to sweep him off his feet, Steve certainly wouldn't complain, not one bit.

  
Alright, so he might have had one...or two....or five...or maybe even twenty sort of fantasies, the day and the night kind, involving him and who he now knew was his favorite comic character of all time.

  
But, with his mysterious past as a former brainwashed assassin, his sometimes ambiguous motives when it came to doing things...

  
And the way his black and grey colored and stretched-out costume really did wonders to his fictional ass, can you really blame Steve for finding all of this really, _really_ hot and for thinking dirty, _dirty_ things whenever the long-haired man appeared on the page?

  
On top of everything, the team that was publishing the comic, an independent little thing called Red Room that, according to their _very_  roughly made web-page, was a descendant of Hydra Corporations, a very, _very_ big player in the publishing game.

And if there was one thing that Steve liked to encourage, it was small businesses taking off from their home nest and try to fly on their own, just like himself had been doing for the past five years.

  
Anyhow, going back to the matter at hand, it was now 7:02AM and the sign on the door clearly indicated that the store was supposed to be opening at 7:00 precisely and why in the world was it taking so long and _god_...

  
His internal complaining was suddenly interrupted when he heard the faniliar jiggle of keys inside a door and...

"Hey Steve." Sam, the owner of the shop and one of the blond's best friend he came to the place so much, said with a slight wave as he _finally_ opened the door. He didn't even let Steve ask what he wanted to ask, he just knew what the other man wanted by the running in place that he was doing right now.

"Upstairs, section 4, in the back, you can't miss it." he added with a slight smile, to which his favorite customer replied with a pat on the back and a grin of his own.

  
"Thanks man, you're a time-saver." called out Steve as he made haste inside, not another mili-second to lose between him and his awaiting El Dorado...

  
**************

  
...That ended up being just a **crock** of _shit_!

  
Steve sat inside his favorite reading spot, a nearby terrace, comic book sitting on the table turned to its last page, unbelieving what he'd just seen, witnessed, read...

  
Whatever, he was fuming too much to care about which verb to use in this instance.

  
Had he...had he just seen what he'd thought he'd seen?

  
Had...had the story ended with Thanos actually accomplishing his goal and winning?

  
Had...had the bad guy actually erased half of the Universe that existed in the series, just like he'd wanted to do all this time?

  
Had, and this was a big one...had the very last panel of this whole thing really been...

  
The Winter Soldier dissolving into ashes?!

  
Steve turned the book again, again and again.

  
No preview for the next issue, no _"See you next time!"_ , no nothing.

  
Was this...was this really _it_?

  
Was the series over? Just like that?

  
Nothing and nobody had warned him about this. Should he have read some kind of sign somewhere that this was about to happen?

  
What...what in the world had he just read?

  
Steve looked down and clenched his fists.

  
Well, whatever his eyes had just witnessed, he needed answers and for once in his life,

  
He wasn't afraid to go straight to the source to get them.


	3. The harsh reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When everything is hopeless, what the hell can you do other than give up?

  
"I still can't believe we actually went through with this." Natasha sadly breathed into her martini.

  
Bucky Barnes wiggled his eyebrows once in agreement as he slowly twirled the straw residing inside his Peach Passion, watching the small cubes of ice at its top churn around and around,

  
Just like his heart had been doing ever since he'd made that fateful decision.

  
He could still remember the meeting as if it had been only moments earlier:

  
Alexander Pierce, the big wig of big wigs, looking at the three of them with a spark of sympathy in his eyes, but his mouth still in a conceited line as he explained everything:

  
_"...an **abysmal** third-quarter..."_

  
_"...only 14,056 issues sold nationally..."_

  
_"We love the Winter Soldier, we all really **do**..."_

  
_"But if there's one thing that always tells the truth no matter how hard it is to accept it, it's sale numbers."_

  
_"Maybe another comic division some other time, but now and this is clearly not it."_

  
_"... your character, your decision..." _

  
And Bucky could only stand there, besides Natasha, the dialoguist and sometimes back-up illustrator of the project and Clint, his very helpful editor and caffeine-provider, as he looked at the big screen with the big spreadsheets and the big, at first very green and then slowly, almost methodically, darkening red numbers, displaying the stark reality of what had been happening, finally getting his head out of the clouds that he'd apparently been living for the past three years.

  
And it was with two simple words: _"Do it."_ that he'd somehow dragged his dream, his seemingly entire life-goal out to the gallows and with an accompanying nod, had kicked the floor from where The Winter Soldier had been standing, noose tight around its fictional neck.

  
It...it had been a good thing to do this...only three people to publish issues on a monthly basis? It was pure madness!

  
Telling an anti-hero story inside a world where the same kind of character came crawling out of every hole there was? What foolishness it had been thinking that it could actually work!

  
At least Mr. Pierce, the Director of the New York branch of Hydra Corporation, had offered them a month turn-around for the three of them to either get a new job somewhere (with accompanying letters of recommendation, of course) or get back to what they'd been doing before deciding to embark on what had turned out to be an fruitless endeavors: just a bunch of copy makers and transmitters back at the big office.

  
And he still at least had his small office, for the next three weeks or so, before everything they'd borrowed or bought to make their project come true had to be brought back or they'd have to take along with them to their new life opportunities.

And his pretty soon former co-workers would still be his friends...well at least, Natasha would be, since the icy glare Clint had been giving him ever since he'd put the death sentence on the whole thing and his last-minute excuse of having dinner with his family to escape their usual monthly bar meeting really didn't let out a good omen over the future of their relationship.

  
So, this was how a usually threesome of people, in what was ordinarily their celebrating spot on a job well done on the latest issue of their accomplished dream...

  
Now was a two-person crew sulking inside their shattered hopes, almost hoping that the upcoming month would come by the next morning, so what was so dreadfully coming would already be over.


	4. When Bobby met Beave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So Steve finally gets his say with the author of his favorite comic, but things dodn't really go the way he'd thought they would...

Steve had the late-night TV on, but wasn't rally watching anything. He was just sitting there, head in his palm, sighing.

  
He'd really thought what he'd done would do the trick...

  
But...

 

_"Hey, you! Bobby, is it?" he'd called from the other side of the security fence at the long-haired man that had just crossed it._

  
_The other man turned around, pointing at himself in confusion, before dropping his hand and blinking. He bit the side of his cheek as he slowly approached the fence. He recognized the man, since they'd talked a few times before (but not on that last occasion since the blond man had been quite shining in his absence), but if his interlocutor wanted to be cute, which he was quite honestly, if Bucky was honest to himself..._

  
_But if his interlocutor wanted to be cute in another way, then Bucky could be cute right back..._

  
_"Do I know...aren't you the guy that serves us drinks at the bar next block from here? Beave, is it?"_

_The blond man squinted and crossed his arms. "Yeah, and it's Steve. And I've got a question for you, Bobby."_

  
_The other man raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms in retaliation. "Well, if you want to ask me a question, first ask me by my real name and that's Bucky, not Bobby."_

  
_Steve sighed loudly and shook his head. "Alright then, **Bucky**." Inside he was fuming. How dare the other man come into work, so innocently like that, after what he'd done. This gorgeous, long-haired man that Steve had always found quite charming whenever he'd crossed his celebratory way, always paying for a round every time he went to the place because at the young age of only 27, he'd finally accomplished his long-life dream, the same kind that the blond had always coveted..._

  
_Publishing his own comic._

  
_So yeah, Steve knew exactly where to go to vent his now 24-hours long frustration._

  
_Grabbing the fence bars that was standing in front of him, Steve asked in a strained whisper: "How could you kill off The Winter Soldier like that?"_

  
_Bucky bit his lip to keep his emotions in check. He did what he'd been instructed to do if someone from the press or a fan came to ask that particular question..._

  
_Give out the corporate answer._

  
_"Listen, Steve, it just was time. There's just too many anti-heroes out there and our wasn't working out. I'm pretty flattered that you seem like a fan of our work, but maybe it's time that you moved to something that has caught on more fire or has been around for much longer, like the Punisher or something like that."_

  
_The security guard that was even more of a beefy dude than Steve or Bucky nodded along as he pointed towards the street nearby the fence. "You heard the man, move on with your not-a-lot-going-on life and beat it!"_

  
_Steve shook the fence as he tried to implore once more: "Please! You have to listen to me!"_

  
_It was then that the guard had had enough. "And **YOU** 're going to listen to **ME**!" he snarled as he grabbed the poor blond by the edge of his shirt and dragged him out of there. _

  
And this was how Steve Rogers found himself rubbing his bottom only two minutes later, sitting on the pavement nearby the small Red Room office, silently pondering on other ways to get his favorite comic character back.

  
And other ways he'd tried and all of them had ended up somehow with him right back at the starting point:

  
The letter he'd so longingly pondered on had been sent right back,

  
The petition he'd tried to start online hadn't brought up a lick of signatures,

  
Even his most recent attempt, chanting and brandishing a **_"One more chance for Winter Soldier! Without him the world is colder!"_** sign by the same fence than the first time he'd tried to do something about the situation, had done nothing but get him a police threat by the side of the head.

  
So here he was now, sitting in his living-room, cartoons reruns in the background, not knowing what to do.

  
Maybe...maybe that guard had been right after all.

  
Maybe he was hanging on to a situation that just couldn't be changed, no matter how much he wanted it to.

  
Maybe he should just let the Winter Soldier go, just like the rest of the world seemed to have done so.

  
Maybe...

  
[_"I will now perform my people's native dance!"_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm3QrkNHTT4) someone called out from the TV, making Steve look up...

  
And making his heart and mind fill back up with hope again.

  
He knew just what to do to get their attention.


	5. Back to now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, how does everyone react to Steve's shenanigans?

Bucky was completely transfixed by what was going on. For hours and hours he watched from his small window, now sitting on a brought-up chair because his legs had cramped after standing still for over thirty minutes, as this foolish man...

  
This stupid, thoughtless, naive...

  
...brave, valiant, fearless man...

  
Danced and danced and danced all night...

  
And all the next morning long...

  
Absolutely and unequivocally...

  
Quite _badly_.

  
From the "Carwash" to the "Macarena" and everything in between, Steve only took two seconds breaks here and there between songs to take a sip of water or bites of granola bars that he'd taken with him, the resourceful man that he was.

  
He knew that he was a bad dancer, everyone that had seen him do the deed had always made it loud and clear right to his face.

  
But he also knew that where he lacked in dancing skills, he thrived in temerity.

  
He smiled when _"The Chicken dance"_ song came on his mixed tape and began to flap his arms along with the music.

  
If he was going to take a stand for something (and probably going to end up getting arrested for the cause), he was going to go down having fun doing it.

**************

  
Now, Alexander Pierce wasn't really a moving around man. He liked to have all his meetings in one place, his lunches and dinners in one place, pretty much all of his life inside one place.

  
So this was why he'd dedicated a part of his huge mansion as his official Hydra Corps. office. And if he to go somewhere other than to visit his family up-state or for an extreme emergency, it'd better be for a very, very, exceptionally _good_ reason.

  
And getting swamped by calls, voice-mails and e-mails for hours on end inside the span of half-a-day was a seemingly good enough reason to get his ass off his bed and call on his chauffeur.

  
All those various ways of communication all pretty said the same thing: _"Something's going on near the Red Room Offices, get there and quick."_

  
Curious by what kind of activity was going on inside a place he'd thought was supposed to be completely empty by now, Alexander took off his sunglasses as his limo finally arrived at its destination...

  
And he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

"Brock, who the hell is that?" he asked his chauffeur.

  
The man in front of the car whispered something to someone that stood outside the limo through the window and then replied: "Oh, that's Steve Rogers, sir. He apparently showed up last night with a boombox in his hands by the office and began dancing to some polka out of the blue. And he hasn't stopped since."

  
Mr. Pierce nodded as he replied: "Yeah, I can see the guy in front wiggling his arms like that is probably the man that you're talking about."

  
Approaching his face nearer his car window, Alexander pointed at something as he clarified: "No, what I was wondering was, who the hell are those hundreds of people doing the exact same thing right behind him?"

  
"Oh...those are..." Brock started, but quickly lost the plot as he now looked even more confused than his boss. "I...I absolutely have no idea, sir."

  
"And...even the guard's joining in too!" Alexander said in wonderment, now looking at the larger man clapping along to what sounded like...

  
The freakin' **Chicken Dance**?!

  
All the while the whole crowd was chanting to the rhythm of the song:

  
_**"One more life to Winter Soldier, without him the World is colder!"** _

  
That was it.

  
"Brock! Get those people to disperse somehow and put everything back to the way that it was." he ordered. After a beat, he added:

  
"And give that Steve-fellow my home address and tell him that I'm granting him a meeting. I wanna meet the man that's been  pretty much making a fool out of himself for the past twenty hours in my private office."


	6. As long as there's one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve finally gets his meeting, but it doesn't really go the way he'd thought it would...

"So, son, you've definitely got quite the attention from a lot of on-lookers, or should I say on-fellow dancers, with all the hoopla you've caused back at Red Room's former place. Tell me, what can I do for you?" Alexander Pierce asked from his large chair, arms crossed on his desk and making Steve sweat bullets and silently gulp.

  
He looked around the room that had been made as an office. In front of him sat Alexander Pierce, the guy he knew represented on the biggest publishing companies in all of the world.

  
To his left stood a couple of people in suits, probably good with numbers and statistics and the such.

  
And to his right, far in the back, stood the trio he'd had the chance to serve drinks on a monthly basis: a blond man who was looking at him as if he was crazy, a red-head with hands in her pockets trying to get herself as small as possible...

  
And Bucky Barnes, standing there with crossed arms, looking like he was waiting to see what was about to happen....

And pretty much the whole reason that Steve had decided to undertake what was looking now more and more quite the foolish mission.

  
"Well, since all those people that were dancing with you were pretty much shouting the same thing that you were, I'm guessing that all of this have to do with the final issue of our Winter Soldier comic?" Alexander asked, getting a bit impatient.  
Steve could only nod, slightly intimated by the whole room staring at him.

  
"And from what I could gather about you, since I have my ways to gather info about people, don't you fret about that, you're quite the fan of Mr. Barnes and his team's work?"

  
Steve nodded at that too, his eyes quickly darting to and fro towards the long-haired man.

  
" _And_ from some other background checks that I've been making about you, just in case you were some Michael Douglas movie-type nutcase that needed to be restrained with a life-jacket instead of an opening inside my home, I've seen that you've got quite the artistic side and you've even invented a character for yourself. An OC, for short, am I right, Captain America?"

  
Steve's eyes grew comically big. How in the world did he-

  
"Uhupup! I've got my ways, that's all there is to it! " the man sitting in front of him simply said. With a small smile, Alexander, put his chin on top of his crossed hands as he began to ponder out loud: "Well, son, you should know that my slogan in life is: even if it's just one person that ends believing in something, then it's worth investing into that particular something. _And_ , since at least three hundred people out there seemed to believe into the same thing that you did, maybe there is a way to make the Winter Soldier less of a money loser than it's been after all. Now, one of the reason we closed out the comic was because of an over-saturated anti-hero market...but from what I've seen, your way too-goody, too-by-the-book Captain America would be quite the foe to someone as dark and as unruly as the Winter Soldier is."

  
Clapping and then rubbing his hands together in anticipation, the sitting man added: "Ah, I can see it now: two opposite battle and then...two opposite attract! I'm think battling and then maybe...romance! What do you think, Barnes?"

  
From the back, Bucky's eyes were now as big as Steve as he shrugged his shoulders and said: "It's actually a great idea, sir."

  
"Good! Good. Red Room, you're given one more chance. Take Rogers' character, with the man who danced like an idiot for you three's sake taking a place on-board of course, and my idea and run with it all. I've given you the go sign, you're the ones that gets the baton. And don't you now four-person team make me regret this, are we clear?"

  
The newly-formed quartet could only stand there, blinking and nodding numbly.

  
And they all looked at one another as they left the office, all thinking the same thing:

  
What in the _hell_ had just happened in there?


	7. Winter Soldier and the Captain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreams can come trueé

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we go, last chapter! Short story is short, I know, but thanks to everybody who liked it anyways, you guys are the best. :)

**A year later...**

  
Clint Barton stood in the bar, drink in hand, wide smile on his face.

  
"I'd like to propose a toast: To the 200th issue of _"The Winter Soldier"_! I never thought we'd actually get there, but here we are and more thriving than ever!"

  
He clinked his glass along the other three members of the Red Room team, the four of them hollering like little kids that had been given their dream Christmas presents.

  
And what a dream it'd been for everybody.

  
After what had been quite the unusual formation, the former trio that consisted of Clint, Natasha and Bucky had all gelled quite well with their newest addition: one Steve Rogers.

  
Having a fourth person around to do some of the work had lifted what had felt like a million tons worth of weight from the rest of the team's shoulders and Mr. Pierce had been quite right when he'd said that Steve had quite the artistic side. He was a genius when it came to put all of their words in forms and pictures and the comic as a whole had gotten quite the upgrade when it came to its art.

  
But that wasn't the only upgrade that it received when the blond man came on board.

  
Captain America was the absolute ideal antagonist for the titular character. It had rivatilized the whole thing, this _"Soldier vs. Cap"_ saga that had been going on ever since the former assassin had been brought back from the dead by his brand new foe a year earlier.

  
And soon, the fans of the series that stood now by the millions would understand why the man had been brought back from the dead by someone that seemed to literally detest him...

  
It was because the pure-hearted man harbored the opposite of hate inside his heart for his enemy...

  
And, just like the Winter Soldier readers would soon learn about their fictional counter-parts, Natasha and Clint would soon both learn why Bucky had been the one to gel the best with Steve out of all of them....

  
As the long-haired man slipped his hand underneath the table cloth...

  
And interlocked his fingers with the one person that had believed the most in his dream's own hand...

  
And making the one that had fought so hard to net let this particular dream die out let out a grin that reached up its ways all the way to his eyes, happy as a clam, finally living his own dream at last.


End file.
